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Listening with a Capital L

Written by: suzanne rodriguez 420 views

Back when I was in college I took a class that changed my life—not because of the subject matter, but because of the superstar professor (who went on to head a major university). She was riveting: so brilliant, dramatic, and mesmerizing that I overcame my tendency to daydream in the classroom and listened carefully to every word. Before long I noticed that really listening had unintended but major benefits; not least, I was able to study less while testing extremely well.

Good listening offers countless advantages. It’s terrific on an inter-personal level, because. . .well, face it, we all like to be listened to. As American playwright Wilson Mizner once put it, “A good listener is not only popular everywhere, but after a while he knows something.”

Being a good listener also helps you work more effectively and productively, and it encourages those around you to do the same. Many people in top management fail to understand the profound benefits of effective Listening—but that’s hardly surprising. After all, Listening is rarely taught at home or in school. Even the best parents and teachers seem to equate Listening with breathing or swimming. That is, they think it’s something that everybody knows how to do.

But keep in mind that there’s a huge difference between listening and Listening. Most people practice the former, paying scant attention to what is being said by others while busily planning their own reply. The latter, however, is an art and a skill—and the effective wielding of it can and will improve your work life.

For instance, if you Listen carefully to what customers say—paying particularly attention to what they want—they’ll end up trusting and buying from you because they’ll feel that you understand and care about their needs.

This kind of Listening worked for Tim Boyle, CEO and President of Columbia Sportswear—one of the world’s largest outerwear brands. Back in 1970, Boyle was a college senior when his father, who had run the family-owned company since 1964, died suddenly of a heart attack. Tim immediately stepped into the breach to manage the company with his mother. At first the pair made one mistake after another, and nearly went bankrupt.

But then Boyle began to really Listen to what people were saying. When bankers—ready to foreclose—made specific suggestions for improving the business, he Listened and made the improvements. When customers told him what they wanted, he Listened and made product changes. The company’s fortunes began heading up, until, in March of 1998, it went public. Last year Columbia Sportswear reported overall sales of nearly $1.1 billion. “Listening,” says Boyle, “was the greatest part of the turnaround.”

Or, as was once said by Lee Iacocca, the renowned former chairman of Chrysler, “Listening is the single skill that makes the difference between a mediocre and a great company.”

Here’s another positive way in which Listening works in business: when you Listen to the people who work for you, their productivity and quality of work tends to improve. Why? Because in an open and accepting Listening environment, honest opinions and new ideas arise, are heard and discussed, and—when appropriate—acted upon. This, in turn, helps to decrease and even dissolve team conflicts.

Dave D’Antoni attributed his success as Senior Vice President of Fortune 500 company Ashland, Inc. to Listening to employees. “Not every team member is able to articulate concerns or solutions,” he once said. To encourage team participation in decision-making, D’Antoni regularly opened meetings by defining a problem and then turning the floor over to others. Meetings would continue while he Listened, took notes, asked an occasional question, and “Listened some more.” Such Listening, D’Antoni later revealed, allowed him to “discover pearls of wisdom.”

And then there was Sam Walton, billionaire founder of Wal-Mart. When asked the secret behind his achievement, he replied: “The key to success is to get out into the store and Listen to what the associates have to say. It’s terribly important for everyone to get involved. Our best ideas come from clerks and stock boys.” No one can deny that his approached worked—and then some!

Somewhere along the line, Tim Boyle, Lee Iacocca, Dave D’Antoni, and Sam Walton not only learned the difference between listening and Listening—they also understood that Listening is vital to productivity and running a successful business.

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© Suzanne Rodriguez
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